Tag Archives: lake

In order to get to Bariloche, we decided to take an “easy” 18 hour bus ride from Mendoza. We downloaded a few movies, got to the terminal early and waited to board our 9:30pm bus (scheduled to arrive between 4-5 PM the following day). The following series of events actually happened:
1. Right before going to the bus terminal we were both dealing with “stomach issues”, probably from what we ate the night before.
2. Navigating some of the bus terminals has proven to be somewhat difficult. Most of the time, departure screens are not clear, hundreds of people are going in all directions and a ton of wild dogs roam the terminals. It’s a general state of chaos! Naturally, our bus did not show up until 11 pm. Let me just reiterate: crowds, heat, chaos and thinking you’ve missed your bus do not mix well with having travelers diarrhea! Here’s a pic of what we were dealing with:

3. Just two hours into our ride, the bus breaks down. No notifications or communication from the bus driver whatsoever. We finally learn that we’re waiting for a new bus or someone to fix the motor. While waiting, we fell asleep only to be awoken by angry/hungry mosquitos eating our faces off like zombies!! It’s daylight now and finally leaving. Set back another 4 hours…..perfect. Here’s a pic of Shannon’s face after the carnage:

Once we made it to Bariloche, it was totally worth it.

San Carlos de Bariloche sits at the base of the Andes in the Río Negro Province and is located within the Nahuel Huapi National Park. It’s known for its great skiing, trekking and chocolate! We’ve never seen so many chocolate stores in one area! The architecture of some of the buildings have a European alpine-style to them and at one point was called “Little Switzerland”.

It was such a beautiful place to be, and after all the fun city things we had been doing, we were so excited to get in touch with the nature!

Our plans were to simply get some good hikes in and enjoy the scenery. We were fortunate enough to get an AirBnB host, Carlos, who is really knowledgeable about the area and gave us some tips on what to do and where to go.

Once we figured out the public bus system, we were able to get to some great trail heads. Our first hike was Campanario. It was about an hour straight up. We could have taken the chairlift up but we chose to tough it out. The reward was some of the most beautiful vistas we have ever seen! We were surrounded by the many lakes that make up Bariloche.

The next day we decided to take a day hike. We started a trail head in Parque Municipal Llao Llao. Coincidentally we ran into the same guys that took pictures for us the previous day. We decided to hike together while getting to know each other.

A couple hours into the hike we started to realize that we had somehow veered off course. It was 11:30 PM by the time a bus came by the road that we were walking on. It was dark, we were exhausted AND we had to fight off aggressive stray dogs with our walking sticks! Yes, this actually happened. We walked just over 30 km that day, which was not on the agenda! It was beautiful though…

Because we couldn’t really walk the next day we decided to go kayaking instead of bike riding like we had originally planned. Lago Perito Moreno Oeste was beautiful that day and the water was crystal clear. Just the relaxation we needed. That night we went out with our friends to celebrate one of their birthdays, a nice end to our trip in Bariloche.